


Shyness

by millionthline



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, American Football, Car Accidents, Closeted Character, Coming Out, F/M, FTM Daryl, First Time, Heteronormativity, Homophobia, M/M, Suicide Attempt, Trans Character, Transphobia, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-20 08:33:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2422097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millionthline/pseuds/millionthline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After having been booted out of high school again from a fight, it doesn't seem like Daryl Dixon, foster-child of Dale and Irma Horvath, has many other options left. But, upon entering Hart High School, it seems as though there's more in store for him than a troubled life: The one sport he'd thought he'd never play, what he found on the Greene Estate, and a boy named Rick with the hopeful smile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

> **From** : Densie Blake <densieblake@hartcharter.net>
> 
> **Date** : July 14th, 2015 1:48 PM ET
> 
> **Subject** : RE: Inquiry on Hart Admissions

 

 

> Dear Dale Horvath,
> 
> Firstly, I hope that Irma is doing well down at the hospital. She's a strong woman; I doubt that anything will take her down. Please send her my best.
> 
> Now, getting back to your phone call — and I can finally say this with full certainty — after having pulled some strings with the charter board, Daryl has been officially accepted into Nancy Hart High School. And, with talking to the coaches of the school and doing quite a bit of convincing, they said that after meeting him they will be willing to think about accepting him into teams as long as forms of guardian and board acceptance are signed, and that they get to examine his physical abilities to perform at the level with the boys. If all of this is taken care of, all that needs to be done after is a physical by a doctor like the rest of the team, and it's all set!
> 
> You brought up the excellent point that if Daryl engages in sports he had the possibility of doing much better in high school than he has been these two previous years, and I do believe that as well, so I'll keep my fingers crossed that when your family discusses it that he agrees to take on a sport. Just please remember that if he wants to go right ahead and try for football, that all of the work needs to be done before the beginning of August, since all that month is preseason training.
> 
> With all the good news said and done comes the more serious information. Like I said, I had to pull a lot of strings to make this happen, but with Daryl being accepted to Hart he's going to be put at as high a standard as the rest of the students that attend. Since it's a charter school there were loopholes that were found that allowed him to join sports, but things such as using bathrooms are more complicated. During the school year he's welcome to use the nurse's bathroom and will be given keys to the teachers bathrooms and lounge, but he won't be allowed to enter the student bathrooms out of consideration for his own safety.
> 
> Given his record with grades and campus behavior, he will need to keep up with classes so that sports will continue being an option for him, and he will also need to stop engaging in fights so that Hart will continue being an option in the first place. Though Hart has not adopted any specific zero tolerance policies, if he is found to be in any physically confrontational situation where he was the instigator, Vice Principal Vargas has made it clear given Daryl's track record that expulsion is a probable punishment. I know that your approaching me about Daryl enrolling at this school was a last chance for him, so please have him understand that if this doesn't work out that his homeschooling you put him through the end of last school year may be permanent until he receives his high school diploma.
> 
> Other than that, I think the last thing to cover is the subject of changing his name on the attendance roll. The attendance office made it clear that unless Daryl gets his name legally changed that Mellie will be what shows up on the student database, so the alternative is for either him or you to start emailing or calling his teachers once he gets his schedule to tell them about his unique situation and hope that they will be willing to call him Daryl in class. I'm afraid that even with me being principal I have no jurisdiction to tell the attendance office to make the change, so that is something that'll just have to be dealt with.
> 
> I do think that that's a wrap! I'm looking forward to meeting Daryl once orientation day comes, and I'll be seeing you at the university this weekend for the Econ department meeting. I'm not sure if Philip can make it since he's been having long hours down at the office, but Penny will be there since I have to pick her up from school beforehand. Actually, maybe I'll see Daryl there too? We'll see!

> Take care,
> 
> Denise Blake


	2. Chapter 2

The first time she'd laid eyes on him, Irma said, was when she fell in love with him: all his tensed and ungiving limbs, lips turned down to a scowl, and the first thing that came out of his mouth, which was an unapologetic belch.

"This is Mellie," said the man that stood hovering about.

The teenager seated at the table looked the other way, out the window, to stare at the waves rising off the street asphalt, the trees holding without motion against the sticky Georgian heat, a car racing by underneath a blue spring sky.

Later on, Dale had said that it was at that moment that the look came in his wife's eyes, the one where a person knows that she's made up her mind and there would be no going back for anyone. And thus ended a journey that lasted six months — twenty six weeks — one hundred and eighty two days — all by a sudden feeling that came about her in a matter of seconds. The teenager saw it too upon turning to chance a look at these prospective adoptive parents who were somehow different from the others, no matter if he recognized the look or not. He'd learn about it eventually, along with all of her other spontaneous antics, like the time they heaved up out of the house that fall when he was still untrusting and she excited and Dale simply revving up the truck to the theme park Wild Adventures.

Damned if he got on any of the water rides, though.

Irma also knew how to storm through all of Daryl's attempts at being a little shit.

"Y'know I'm a tranny, right?" his then high voice barked when they were in the car and he was slouching in his seat, arms crossed and leaning away from her on the inner car door.

Irma didn't even blink.

"Head doctor done said that there's all sorts'a other shit wrong with me, too." He kept looking at her, waiting for a reaction, but nothing came. All that he heard for several minutes were the tires rolling across the road and the small jingle of the stick as she switched gears until they pulled into a parking spot in front of the Harris Teeter. Then she turned to him.

Daryl looked away to his feet immediately.

"Thank you for tellin' me," she finally said. Daryl felt an uncomfortable heat creep up his neck, around his ears. "How can I help you?"

Around the end of his sophomore year, Daryl was sitting with his doctor and Irma and Dale learning how to self-inject testosterone. Needles, apparently, weren't that big a scare when he realized that they were the thing that made his throat swell in a gloriously cracking ache within the week, or as time went on, the narrowing of his face, how his arms and shoulders exploded with growth. Soon enough his student peers realized that something odd was going on with the hick in the corner of the classroom, but a quick slam of one of their heads against the hallway lockers after they deciding to pick fun at him granted him leave of school for the foreseeable future. Just as well, he figured. He was just surprised that he hadn't gotten expelled sooner from all the scraps he would find himself in.

And then, in the spring, Dale said that it came back.

Irma wasn't around much after she was readmitted to the hospital for yet another round of chemo, and during that time Daryl got to know his other new parent. Granted, it came slower than how Irma had simply opened up and let him soak in all her unconditional loving.

Dale was an economics professor and avid enthusiast of making his wife happy, and so, Daryl guessed, that meant dealing with the kid that held himself up on the other side of the house for half the summer. But as it turned out, Dale wasn't half bad; For someone who was starting to grey, he had lots of life in him. He was more than happy to teach Daryl how to work on the dusty motorcycle in the garage, or how to drive while outside of the city limits, which was how Daryl got his motorcycle learner’s permit right before March ended.

Irma was still in the hospital by the time that Dale showed him the email about Hart High, some charter school uptown for the snooty bitches of Atlanta he’d heard plenty about while bouncing high school to high school in the district. Dale was leaning on a bookshelf nearby while Daryl sat in front of the office desktop computer, . Something they hadn't discussed, nor the boy thought about, since school was the furthest thing on his mind; and suddenly, Hart and football and bathrooms, attendance rolls and grades, the fights that got him booted and this new principal lady that just dragged him back into the game.

An instant fear seized him.

Daryl suddenly thought of all the things that could go terribly wrong: the football locker rooms and someone seeing a tit popping out his binder, or someone catching wind on his using bathrooms other than the student ones, or someone finding something, no matter what it was related to, to pick on him about. It always happened in the past and it never changed — why should it now?

"You didn't tell me 'bout none of this?" He turned in the swivel chair to face Dale, hands gripping the armrests in his sudden frustration. "I 'ain't goin' back to school."

"I know that you didn't have a good time last year, but I think that this is a good option for you. With everyone's help you might even have a good time. You'll make friends." Dale was picking his words carefully.

Daryl didn't care. "All of them Hart folk are pricks, they 'ain't gonna be friendly." With that he got up to make for the door. When Dale moved to grab his arm, Daryl flinched.

"Irma would want it for you." The older man backed off as soon as he caught the other's reaction, but with a purpose Daryl moved out of the room as fast he could. "Daryl!"

* * *

Dale stopped dropping in on him as much when he held up in his bedroom for the following few days, and good goddamn riddance for it, too. The more Daryl thought about it, the more it pissed him off. Telling people that didn't need to know anything about his business, didn't have the permission to know, and yet here Dale was telling strangers about him in hopes that he could toss around a ball with some high and mighty city slickers. Fuck that.

A group of people his age walked by below his window and he pulled his head out of view, resisting the urge to hack up a glob of spit to send down on them. On the other side of Daryl's room was the asphalt jungle of Virginia-Highlands, Atlanta, one of the nicer areas outside of Midtown. With having been brought up in the Georgian mountain base without much around except woods to hunt and a few sparse abandoned shacks to fool around in when getting bored, the boy was most comfortable in any place other than some bustling city with people walking around all the time, with cars always storming up and down his street. Though the herd had passed, Daryl spat out the window anyway just for the sake of watching it hit the pavement.

He hung his arm out the window, feeling the late summer heat and moist heaviness lap at his skin, and he watched his fingers in vague interest as they repeatedly flexed and balled into a fist. For the first time in a long while he thought of Merle.

It made him feel bad, too. How long had it been since his older brother crossed his mind? Daryl hadn't seen him in years, though he'd only been snatched up by the child protective services himself a little over thirteen months ago.

The absence of wind was just like it was that last day they talked, when the two siblings sat in the porch and spoke in hushed tones so that their father wouldn’t roused from slumber on his living room chair. What they were talking about Daryl couldn't even remember, it seemed like so long ago, but that night Merle had secretly slipped away like dripping sweat off the forehead, always clinging like it's going to stay there till it doesn't. Rumor was that he eventually got snatched up and tossed into juvie yet again, leaving the younger Dixon to suffer the parental consequences.

Daryl wondered what his brother would think of his new life, with his little sister deciding to have gone off and be a transvestite with some commiecrats in the heart of Atlanta. He reckoned that Merle would never want to speak to him again.

The pack of boys had stopped at a house front just several doors down, but there was one figure that simply stood with his neck tilted in such a way that Daryl knew he was staring up at him.

No use in wondering what Merle would want him to do about the offer of going to Hart. Or his mother either, for that matter, since in truth he barely knew the woman between her long days wasting away and sparse moments of sharp lucidity, where her eyes weren't glossed and she still kept herself folded from the world anyway. Daryl figured that wondering about his father's opinion wasn't even worth thinking about.

Down below the boys talked, and it was about, of course, football. Something about some team or another to be exact, but Daryl's attention was caught nonetheless, especially when at looking back to them he saw the one figure's head from before quickly snap away to his friends. And not for nothing, but Daryl having shot a deer square between the eyes at thirty feet before wasn't just from dumb luck — it was all his sharp eyes. And with those eyes, from their distance he saw the outline of a large H, backed with a fox head and colored all red and gold, on one of their jackets.

When they started to walk away again he caught another look flung over the shoulder towards his window before the student ducked his head and hurried on.

* * *

He said it at the table during breakfast. Dale and Irma were old fashioned like that, always insisting on setting up the forks and knives and shiny plates just to eat and wash them all up to put away again. He still didn’t get it, but it didn't take long to get used to. Dale kept quiet and stared at the muted television in the living room and the only real thing Daryl could think to say was, "I can't handle no football."

"Son, if you want to give it a shot, I can teach you by the end of July." In truth, Daryl had never before given football any real thought in all his life.

When they started he was beginning to think that it was all some real bullshit. But then he tossed his first good throw through the humid air, its spiraling mass spraying off the water it had been drenched in after landing in the tiny backyard's puddle just before, and the ball evened out like God's hand itself came down and steadied it. It was a good thing that he did as many boredom-inspired pushups as he did too, seeing as it hit Dale square in the chest and nearly knocked the wind out of him.

At night he began looking up at the ceiling and wonder what it was going to be like for nobody to know about him being different the way he was. He’d just be Daryl, one of the guys, running the field Friday nights with cheering on the bleachers and a ball glued in his arms cradled at his stomach, the distance between him and the world a widening stretch of glossy green grass —

And then, _touchdown!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> could you guys believe that i didn't know any derogatory nicknames for democrats so i literally found a republican message board with all these people, with legit no irony or humor, calling all democrats commiecrats and the like
> 
> i literally sat there laughing for 80 years
> 
> with that said, my usage of transvestite was ironic and in daryl's pov while thinking of what words might be going through his brother's mind. just thought i'd confirm.


	3. Chapter 3

They had told Irma the good news about the school board finally agreeing to let Daryl join the team while around her hospital bed, where Dale held onto her hand as he would a flower, and the single Dixon kept his silent vigilance over her between listening to the spouses converse and watching the television in the corner with an attempt at a neutral expression.

 _Just don't go stirring up anything political_ , the Hart board had said after Dale called to confirm Daryl’s attendance, but on the news wasn't a single person like him in the sea of school shootings and stock market drops. Wasn't like he was planning to throw himself into a spotlight of shit, anyhow. Irma, however, frowned at hearing they’d said that in her own private disagreements.

For all her weak appearances she was doing well, but her husband still insisted on taking the spot near her side every afternoon after his classes wrapped at the university, which was why Daryl was getting left at school by himself for football orientation.

"Don't forget your physical sheet."

"Yeah."

After reaching into the car door pocket to get the already crumpled paper, he jumped out of the car. Outside, the sun beat off the school building and sidewalk, and his forehead was already slick with sweat despite having stuck his head out the window the whole way there. Not that it bothered him much, though. Dale drove off with a wave and Daryl stood staring until the car was clear down the street and around the corner, and he thought to himself that he'd lived through hotter days. Football orientation was waiting for him somewhere in the imposing campus in front of him and he'd definitely gone through worse.

It did take some repeating before he actually turned to face the large building with a half-hearted glare. And, after he was done being regretful about getting into it all in the first place, Daryl took his first steps onto the school grounds to walk across the front courtyard and to the large main doors, one of which was left open wide.

The inside of the building was something else entirely: a staircase straight across the ways from the entrance that branched off up top on either side, and a large tiled emblem of the Hart fox at the foot of the steps; lockers lining the corridors, and banners from last years' events still sticking out from the trashcans; an echoed arrangement of voices from the left hallway where young men and mothers talked and moved towards what was most likely the gym. So Daryl followed, all the while making sure to widen his stride, because hell if he was going to seem intimidated just because he was alone.

And, he realized, everyone except him had a parent with them. Daryl entered the auditorium riddled with booths set for uniform purchases and info packets and he was the only straddler that sat down several rows back.

Some skinny asian kid with his father decided to sit next next to him when one of the coaches began talking and mostly everyone was putting their things down to get settled. It was all mostly for the parents, talking about the pre-season practice schedules and whatnot.

The boy to his right leaned in close and whispered, “you new? Haven’t seen you around.”

“What’s it to you?” Daryl countered harshly, and out of the corner of his eye when he turned his head back to watch the coach talk he saw the kid blink in surprise.

“Whoa, okay,” was the reply, and he leaned back out of the Dixon’s bubble. “I’m Glenn. You? Uh, if I can ask.”

He turned his head again to give Glenn a disgruntled look. “Daryl,” and he turned back at the new person up talking who waved around one of the last years’ letterman jackets.

“Daryl. That’s cool.”

“Be quiet,” Glenn’s father hushed, and the teen raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms, lips zipping tight.

For a minute or two the lack of distraction caused Daryl to actually make an attempt to pay attention to what they were saying on the floor, but eventually his gaze slipped behind him to the crowd of baseball cap-wearing fathers and soccer moms, jocks, and their younger siblings teetering off the bleacher sidebars as if they had a deathwish.

Maybe he had made the wrong call on this. He wouldn’t fit in, what the hell was he thinking? He wasn’t any son of some married couple with two and a half kids that threw Thanksgiving parties around a flat screen to watch the Superbowl. Hell no. He was a Dixon, and that meant scars that uglied the skin, sudden escapades in the sticky woodland heat without seeing a single soul for days on end, people leaving you behind and having you deal with all the world’s shit alone, or at least your fathers’. All these kids were normal with their normal lives and normal pasts. In comparison, Daryl was outright freakish.

Not to mention that he was the only one with moobs in the room, other than one of the coaches who had a large belly to match. Without any real conscious thought the teen let himself hunch over more, his shirt slacking down to bag about his chest in a veil of sweet obscurity, no matter how tight his sweat-damp binder felt.

With all his looking around behind him Daryl saw something familiar: a big red jacket with an H on it, backed with a fox head and colored all red and gold.

Then it happened.

“Mellie? Is there a Mellie here?”

Daryl’s head snapped to face the fat coach that decided to talk for the first time. All that suddenly spewed in his mind was a storm of _fuck_ s, but he didn’t make any move to stand up. There was probably an abundance of Mellies around.

“Mellie Dixon?”

He had half the mind to get up and run out the room right then, because the board had promised — they’d fuckin’ _promised_ — that everyone would respect his name, but everyone was suddenly looking around for Mellie, and Daryl felt as though his heart was slamming against his chest as though to break it open like a kicked-in door, so all he did was get up and walk to the coach as quickly as he could. He slipped through the aisle and over the newly shined floors and hardly remembered walking at all because there he was in front of Coach Peletier, as the card hanging off the man’s lanyard said.

“I’m Dixon,” Daryl said, keeping his voice at a conversational volume, but it was still low enough for everyone on the bleachers to not hear him. It almost made him stop talking, how surprised he was that his words didn’t break, despite how it felt like a baseball was stuck in his throat. The oher coach that was talking before continued on and eventually the stares stopped, except for the look of absolute shock on Peletier’s face.

Good riddance, too — Daryl could just imagine what was going through the poor son-bitch’s head: _But that doesn’t look like a girl!_ Willing himself to force more words out from his mouth, he added, “Must’a heard ya wrong on that first part, though, sir. M’name’s Daryl.”

Daryl found himself on the receiving end of an incredulous look. “Follow me.”

So he did. They walked out to the entry room of the gym, cut out of sight from all the people inside, and there Peletier turned around to stare at him as if trying to burn two holes in Daryl’s face. Needless to say, the teenager stepped back. “I have this,” he tried, and fished for the crumpled paper in his pants pocket to hand over.

The man snatched it and looked it over. “Daryl Dixon,” he read aloud to himself. Then he looked back at Daryl and crossed his arms. “You ain’t on the team yet. You’ve gotta prove to me that you can handle it,” he said matter-of-factly.

Daryl nodded his head in a lazy swing. “Yeah, I know that.” And yet he suddenly wanted to bail at wondering what he could possibly have to prove of himself. Compared to himself, that Glenn kid was a toothpick. This was so unfair.

“And if you do make it, you ain’t gonna be in the locker rooms.”

Daryl nodded again, the saliva in his mouth suddenly going sticky.

He wasn’t sure what he was exactly expecting at first, but what it turned out to be didn’t seem all that bad: a quick run outside through the doors in the entry room, some chin-ups at the bars nearby, back inside and doing sit-ups till he could feel sweat stinging at his eyes. Near the end of it, everyone in the gym was already moving out the doors to get home, all the time throwing curious looks at the kid doing push-ups in the corner. It was enough to make Daryl go redder than he already was out of all the looks he was getting.

When he saw Glenn follow his dad towards the exit doors and pause with something like concern crossing his face, Daryl grunted and turned his gaze back to the ground. His arms were aching enough but fuck if he didn’t start going faster.

Even by the time that Coach Peletier finally wove him off with a grunt, telling him to go pick up his gear before leaving, Daryl could still feel all the stares burning on him. The gym was empty as he picked his way alone through the booths to pay for a uniform with the money Dale shoved into his palm, and then he picked up some informational packets and schedules. By the time he was finally done, judging from the time, Dale had been waiting for half an hour already.

The coaches that were busy putting things away were looking now, too, just like the crowd of parents and students.

One of them actually came up to him before he left — some old man, his white hair tucked in a hat. “You got everything you need, son?”

Daryl just blinked. “Yes sir.” On the man’s name card it said Coach Greene.

“Peletier said that you’ll be just fine on the team.” That in itself surprised Daryl, since from the big-bellied coach’s stare it seemed like nothing he was doing was right. Nonetheless, he felt something in his chest flutter appreciatively at Greene’s congratulatory tone. “I’ll be seeing you around.”

“Yes, sir,” Daryl said again, and with that he inclined his head and left the gym. By the time that he got to Dale and the car he was still trying to figure out how he felt about this. Greene seemed nice enough, but Peletier was an asshole if he’d ever seen one.

He quickly opened the car door so the metal wouldn’t burn him long, and once he plopped into the seat he pushed everything in his arms onto the car dash. The car revved and they took off.

“How’s Irma doin’?” Daryl asked as he watched the buildings blur by before Dale had the chance to say anything first.

“As good as ever. They finally switched her meal plan. How was orientation?”

Daryl grunted and his foster-father glanced at him. “All right.”

“Meet anyone?”

After Peletier and the bleachers of normals, he was more than convinced that this wouldn’t work out for him well in the end. Simple math, really: something goes wrong, and they find an excuse to call it quits with a ‘we tried’. But Dale and Irma had tried so hard to do what they thought was best for Daryl, fighting with the board and all, and Irma would always ask about Daryl’s nonexistent friends when he was in his last school with hope in her eyes. So, he just knew that this time there would be no letting anyone down.

It was going to go to hell, but hell if he wasn’t going to fight his inevitable failure tooth and nail. Football team was damn lucky having him if scrawny-asses like Glenn were getting let in, anyway.

“Yeah, I did.”

It made Daryl’s stomach hurt to see how happily Dale smiled, like he was so proud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been trying to update weekly, but from here on out since uni application sessions have started i'm not sure whether or not i'll have the time i had before to dedicate to continue writing this fic so often. not to say that i won't be, because i'm really enjoying it and am very excited and thankful for everyone who is commenting and supporting (thank you all so so much!!), but i thought i'd give fair warning that it might slow down slightly for a little while.
> 
> with that said, hope y'all enjoy the update!


End file.
